Month: December 2016

The WCHF is delighted to confirm that Professor Eunan O’Halpin will be one of the contributors to the Festival. Eunan O’Halpin is Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin. He has published widely on aspects of twentieth century Irish and British history. Amongst relevant works are The Decline of the Union: British government in Ireland 1892-1920 (Dublin, 1987), Defending Ireland: the Irish state and its enemies since 1922 (Oxford, 1999), and Spying on Ireland: British intelligence and Irish neutrality during the Second World War (Oxford, 2008). A founding co-editor of the series Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, he is currently preparing a study of Afghanistan and the belligerents during the Second World War. He has strong family links to the Irish revolution, in which his Halfpenny, Moloney and Barry grandparents had senior roles and in which two great uncles were killed.

WCHF is pleased to announce that Professor Terry Barry will contribute to our inaugural event. Terry Barry is Professor Emeritus in Medieval History at Trinity College Dublin. His main interests lie in understanding the settlements of the Normans who conquered England after 1066 and Ireland after 1169. He is currently working on a book that investigates the historic landscapes around Norman castles in Europe. In his presentation to the Festival, he will be discussing mediaeval tower houses in Ireland and elsewhere and helping to set the form, as we see it in West Cork, in its wider context.

We are very pleased to announce Dr Andy Bielenberg will be contributing to the Festival in July next year. Andy Bielenberg is a Statutory Lecturer in History at University College Cork. He has published widely on Irish economic and social history, and is currently engaged in various research projects on the Irish revolution, including a digital memorial of all fatalities of the War of Independence in Co Cork.

The Festival is delighted to confirm that Professor David Fitzpatrick will be a contributor next July. David Fitzpatrick is a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Dublin, where he was until recently Professor of Modern History. He has held various visiting appointments in Australia and Canada, and in 2013 was Parnell Fellow in Irish Studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His work has ranged widely across the political, social, economic, and cultural history of modern Ireland, including many studies of Irish emigration, Irish involvement in the Great War, and the Irish revolution. His most recent book is Descendancy: Irish Protestant Histories since 1795, which presents a detailed study of the revolutionary experience of Methodists in West Cork. He has contributed extensively to debates about the Bandon Valley killings, and looks forward to discussing their wider significance in his lecture.

The WCHF is delighted to announce that Professor Marianne Elliott will be among the contributors to the Festival next year. Professor Elliott, who was born in Belfast, held the first Tony Blair Chair of Irish Studies from 2007 to 2014. She is the author of the multi-award winning biography Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence, and has been internationally recognized for her role in the Northern Ireland peace process, most notably serving on the Opsahl Commission in 1993, co-writing its report, ‘A Citizens’ Inquiry’. In October 2000, she was awarded an OBE for services to Irish Studies and the Northern Ireland peace process.